NASA Orion Avionics System Ready for First Test Flight

Testing of the Orion spacecraft's avionics system has concluded at the Lockheed Martin Operations & Checkout facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After powering on and sending commands to more than 20 different critical systems installed on the spacecraft’s crew module, NASA and Lockheed Martin engineers have verified the avionics for Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) are ready to support a successful flight and re-entry of the spacecraft.

TTTech's Deterministic Ethernet solution (TTEthernet) is one of the advanced technologies deployed in Orion MPCV. TTEthernet facilitates the design of mixed criticality integrated control systems for a variety of distributed applications like avionics. Key TTEthernet operation principles ensure its future use with other Ethernet-based networks in heterogeneous or legacy systems.

Following the initial power on of the Vehicle Main Computer in October, engineers have since methodically installed additional harnessing, wiring and electronics onto the crew module—completing the avionics system that serves as the eyes, ears and brains of the spacecraft. During these tests, engineers one-by-one activated and sent commands to the pyrotechnics, batteries, thermal control, cameras, guidance and navigation, propulsion, and environmental control life support systems, all while evaluating signal quality, on-board system responses, and data production.